Ship that brought down Baltimore bridge suffered power outages hours earlier – National & International News – TUE 14Mar2024

Ship that brought down Baltimore bridge suffered power outage 10 hours earlier.

Killer whales attack and sink 50-foot yacht near Strait of Gibraltar.

NATIONAL NEWS

Ship that brought down Baltimore bridge suffered power outage 10 hours earlier

The initial findings of an NTSB investigation reveal that the Dali, the ship involved in the Baltimore bridge collapse earlier this year, had suffered a serious power failure 10 hours before the collision. The initial power outage occurred when a crew member mistakenly closed an exhaust damper on the engine, causing the engine to stall. The crew was able to remedy this by closing two breakers. A second power failure then occurred due to a problem with a generator. To address this problem, the crew then switched over to another set of breakers. These were the breakers that were in use hours later when the Dali left port.

Minutes before colliding with a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the ship again lost power twice. Each time the crew was able to restore power, but the second time power was restored, the crew was unable to regain propulsion in time to avoid the collision. The collision and resulting collapse of the bridge killed six members of a roadcrew who were repairing potholes at the time. The bodies of all six victims have since been recovered.

The NTSB’s report does not offer any conclusions about whether the power failures the Dali suffered while docked were connected to the power failures that caused the collision. Nor is there any determination about whether the later power failures could have been foreseen and prevented. This is a preliminary report and the full investigation is continuing. A full report will take at least a year. The FBI has also opened a criminal investigation of the incident.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Killer whales attack and sink 50-foot yacht near Strait of Gibraltar

On Sunday, the Alboran Cognac, a 50-ft yacht, came under attack from an unknown number of orcas. The creatures repeatedly rammed the boat’s hull and rudder, causing water to seep into the vessel. The couple who were on board sent out a distress call and were rescued by a passing oil tanker. The boat could not be salvaged and eventually sank.

Over the past four years, there have been several attacks on small vessels by orcas (also known as killer whales) off the Iberian coast. According to GT Orca Atlantica, a conservation group,  there have been at least 700 orca attacks on vessels since 2020, most of them off the Iberian coast or near the Strait of Gibraltar, the closest land point between Europe and Africa.

It’s unclear why the orcas suddenly began attacking boats. One popular theory was that the orcas, who form tight-knit familial units called pods, were avenging the death of one of their group who was killed by a boat. However, some marine biologists and animal behavioralists have said it is more likely that it is a play behavior, which young whales have learned from older whales.

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